Scaling characteristics of photonic crystal verticle-cavity lasers

Abstract

This study shows that photonic crystal vertical cavity surface-emitting lasers exhibit improved optical confinement and resultant scaling of laser properties, as well as single fundamental mode operation over a wide range of device structure parameters. Single fundamental mode operation is achieved for a wide range of device parameters. The use of photonic crystal confinement, in which the etched holes and light propagation are parallel, provides a means for significantly reducing the modal volume of microcavity lasers.